Matson, who also won two Olympic medals as a sprinter, did almost everything in the N.F.L.: rushing, catching passes, returning kickoffs and punts (he set a league record with nine career touchdown returns) and playing defense. He played from 1952 through 1966, missing the 1953 season when he served in the Army, and retired with 12,884 combined net yards, an N.F.L. record at the time, although his teams (the Chicago Cardinals, the Los Angeles Rams, the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles) collectively had two winning seasons.

At 6 feet 2 inches and 210 to 220 pounds, he was exceptionally strong. But opponents feared his speed even more.

“Speed and quickness, that’s what you need to return kicks,” he once said. “I was big, but I was swift for that size. I could either run around you, over you or through you. I didn’t do a lot of hard cutting like Gale Sayers did. But we both had that peripheral vision to know where guys were going to be, and we had that speed to get there.”

Joe Kuharich, who coached Matson in college and in the pros, called him “the best all-around football player I’ve seen or coached.” Dick Evans, an Eagles defensive coach, called him “the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen.” Nonetheless, in his college years, there were some people for whom his race was apparently more important than his ability.

At the University of San Francisco, which before he enrolled had been known more for basketball than football, Matson was one of the stars of the undefeated and untied 1951 team, which he called “the greatest of all time.” He led the nation that year with 1,566 yards rushing and 21 touchdowns and was named an all-American as a defensive back. But as one of the team’s two African-American players (linebacker Burl Toler was the other), he faced obstacles his white teammates did not.

Matson recalled a game against the University of Tulsa, which wanted San Francisco to leave its black players home. “I got hit with everything: fists, elbows, knees,” he told The Saturday Evening Post in 1966. “Finished that game with two black eyes, a bloody nose and my face puffed up like a pound cake. I scored three touchdowns, and they were all called back.”

Despite its 9-0 record, the 1951 San Francisco team was not invited to a bowl game. It was later reported that the Orange, Sugar and Gator Bowl committees that season did not consider inviting any teams that had black players.

Photo

Running back Ollie Matson with the Chicago Cardinals in 1954. One coach called him “the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen.”Credit
Associated Press

Matson told The New York Times in 2001 that when Kuharich, the San Francisco coach, told the players that they might be invited to the Orange Bowl if Matson and Toler did not play, the team’s defensive star Gino Marchetti said, “No, we ain’t going to go without Burl and Ollie.”

Marchetti confirmed the story, but added that he was not the only player to take that stand. “We answered, ‘No, we’d never do that,’ ” he told The Times in 2009. “And after we said no and removed ourselves from consideration, nobody ever had a second thought about it.”

The team lost $70,000 over that season. With no bowl money to offset the deficit, the university discontinued its football program.

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Three of the players on that San Francisco team — Matson, Marchetti and Bob St. Clair — were voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a feat achieved by no other college team. Toler became the N.F.L.’s first black on-field official. The team’s public-relations director was Pete Rozelle, who was also voted into the Hall of Fame after a distinguished career as the N.F.L. commissioner. When the Rams traded eight players and a draft choice to the Cardinals to get Matson in 1959, in one of the biggest deals in league history, Rozelle was the Rams general manager who made the deal.

Ollie Genoa Matson II was born on May 1, 1930, in Trinity, Tex. When he was 14, his family moved to San Francisco, and in 1952, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of San Francisco.

In 1948, Matson ran in the United States Olympic trials. In 1952, he made the team and won a bronze medal in the 400-meter dash in 46.8 seconds and a silver in the 4x400-meter relay.

After his N.F.L. career, Matson taught physical education and coached football at Los Angeles High School, then coached the running backs at San Diego State and scouted for the Eagles. For 11 years, he was the special-events supervisor for Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He retired in 1989.

He is survived by two daughters, Lisa Lewis and Barbara King; two sons, Ollie III and Bruce; a twin sister, Ocie Thompson; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Matson was elected to six Pro Bowl teams and six All-Pro first or second teams, and was a co-winner of rookie of the year honors in 1952. In 1972, the first year he was eligible, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and in 1976, he was inducted into the National Football Foundation’s College Hall of Fame.

“Figures do not show his true value,” Ray Richards, the Cardinals’ coach from 1955 to 1957, once said of Matson. “When he is in the lineup, somehow the whole team is inspired.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 21, 2011, on Page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: Ollie Matson, an All-Purpose Football Star, Dies at 80. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe